Mike Pompeo’s reign of error comes to an end with an ‘assault on the
First Amendment’

By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
January 13, 2021 05:00 AM

In about a week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s service will
mercifully come to an end.

America will be better when he leaves office. Kansas will be much better
if he decides to stay away from his adopted home state forever.

The latest episode in Pompeo’s reign of error came this week. The
secretary gave a speech at the headquarters of Voice of America, the
international news network supported by the federal government.

Pompeo called for VOA to abandon its role as a provider of fact-based
journalism to become America’s cheerleader instead. He made no mention
of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, an omission that drew the attention of
a VOA journalist.

“Mr. Secretary, do you regret saying there will be a second Trump
administration?� asked VOA reporter Patsy Widakuswara as the secretary
left the building.

Pompeo didn’t answer, as is his wont. Just a few hours later, though,
Widakuswara was reassigned from her post at the White House. Pompeo’s
role in that reassignment isn’t clear.

“At a moment when the world already has watched an assault on our
democratic institutions, the Trump administration has chosen to send
another message — with an assault on the First Amendment,� said a
statement from the White House Correspondents’ Association.

“VOA’s reassignment of Patsy Widakuswara for doing her job, asking
questions, is an affront to the very ideals Secretary of State Pompeo
discussed in his speech Monday.�

That should worry all of us. It won’t worry Pompeo, who has fought free
speech and the free press since he joined the Trump administration four
years ago.

His battles with reporters, and reporting, were a theme during his time
as secretary of state. He exploded after an interview with NPR. He
accused a Nashville reporter of working for the Democratic National
Committee, a charge he later leveled at PBS.

Closer to home, Pompeo inaccurately accused Star reporters of having
“your math wrong� when they asked him about a foreign aid program. They
were right. He later claimed a question from a Star political reporter
was “insane.�

This is quite rich coming from a man who whines incessantly about
alleged censorship on social media. As we now know, Pompeo may be the
most anti-free-press secretary of state in American history.

The secretary’s aberrational behavior doesn’t stop there, of course. He
sponsored highly questionable taxpayer-funded dinners at the State
Department that appeared to serve little purpose beyond bolstering his
political ambitions.

State Department workers were allegedly asked to perform personal
errands for Pompeo and his spouse, another stain on his record.

More broadly, he has spent the last few months doing his best to wreck
the foreign policy of the incoming Joe Biden administration. This week’s
declaration of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism is the latest
example of this sad behavior.

Is the U.S. more respected in the world after Pompeo’s service? Of
course not. We’re viewed with a mixture of sorrow, anger and pity. Other
nations are stepping into the breach.

Five years ago, Pompeo came to national attention after criticizing
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for alleged failures during a
terrorist raid in Benghazi, Libya. He called her actions “morally
reprehensible.�

Now, days after thousands of Americans ransacked our own national
Capitol, leaving at least five dead and hundreds terrorized, Pompeo is
silent. It appears his concept of morality does not extend to these shores.

Kansans will do well to remember this sad record if Pompeo comes back
and runs for office. No doubt he’ll be asked about it, and he won’t
respond well.


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